Lisa was scheduled to come clean today, so naturally Emma found herself scrubbing counters and cleaning up wayward toys as soon as Steve and the boys were gone. She thought about vacuuming, but she happened to glance into Steve's study on her way down the hall and decided she should clean off his desk first. Steve had this habit of leaving mail and personal paperwork scattered across his desk at any given time. She had been nagging him about organizing things practically since they got married. Somehow he was capable of keeping his business office neat as a pin, but when he was home it was a different story.Emma sorted through the materials, placing everything into piles. There was a file drawer at the bottom of the desk where, each year, she carefully placed folders marked for each of the important, paperwork generating aspects of their lives. Utilities, credit cards, house insurance, car insurance, health insurance. There was a folder for everything, yet the man could not possibly

It didn't occur to Emma to ask which spa they were going to until they had been on the road for nearly twenty minutes. As realization dawned, she leaned back in her seat and stared out the window, telling herself she should demand Jen turn the car around. She had signed on to get her nails done, not to have some compensated Lothario grope her.As though she could hear Emma's thoughts, Jen said, "They are nothing but discreet, Emma.""That's not the point.""You need this. You need to be treated like a woman."Emma shook her head. She couldn't argue with that, either. "But fighting a cheater by cheating seems counterproductive.""Don't think of it as cheating. It's not like you're in love with these guys. Though," she said with a chuckle, "you might certainly fall in love with their perfect bodies and perfectly huge cocks."Emma couldn't help but laugh. Leave it to Jen to twist things around and make the immoral seem mundane.Jen reached over and took her hand. "Listen, you don't

It was like no massage cubicle she had ever seen. To begin with, it wasn't a cubicle. It was a full room. And there wasn't just a massage table in sight.The room was filled with an array of things, some Emma had never seen. There were shelves along one wall that held every possible sex toy one could imagine. Emma found herself staring at dildos and vibrators in every shape and size, most of them reflecting the blues and purples of the room. There was a rack that had every type of whip imaginable draped over the pegs like winter coats. There were steel rings attached to the opposite wall at multiple heights and a few braced to the ceiling above. Off to one side was a contraption that looked nothing like the swing that hung from a tree in Emma's backyard. And it had what looked like a series of belts, as though a person needed to be seat belted in to use it.There was a settee off to one side, not unlike the one in Mrs. Hartley's office. But this one was missing the back, had straps o

"I want to go back."Jen studied Emma over the top of her coffee cup. "Emma, I don't""I want to go back. I want to know more about the things they do there.""Why?"Emma took a sip of her own coffee before glancing over her shoulder for eavesdroppers, even though she knew Steve and the boys were safely on their way to their appropriate Wednesday morning destinations. Then her eyes moved to the tightly closed door that opened into her recently completed studio. No one to worry about over there, either. They guys had taken the day off to wait for more supplies. Or something like that.But, somehow, she still felt like she was revealing a secret that had the power to destroy her."I just-" she bit her lip, annoyed that yet another blush was burning across her cheeks. "I just want to try it one more time."Jen put down her cup and sat back, her eyes moving slowly over Emma's face. "Did you tell Steve?"She nearly laughed at the thought. They might coexist in the same house, but it

The glass of wine tasted like sweet nectar on her tongue. It wasn't even five o'clock in the afternoon. She had just picked up the boys from school, should be in the dining room helping them with their homework. But she so needed the oblivion the wine offered. She wasn't sure how much longer she could do this.It took so much more effort to pretend that everything was okay than it did to accept defeat. Her marriage was over. She could say it to herself. Why couldn't she say it to him?Speaking of the devil. Steve walked into the room, tugging at the tie around his neck as he spotted the bottle of wine on the table. He went to a cabinet and pulled down a glass. "What are you doing here?" she asked as he made his way to the table."I still live here," he said, helping himself to the wine.Emma let the comment slide, not really in the mood to argue with him. Instead, she swallowed the last of the wine in her glass and held it out for a refill. He obliged, filling it to the rim